The morning sun was just starting onto the horizon, as Ren, my party and his, and I were waiting in the square. Down one of the streets, we could see the Hero of the Shield prepping a wagon, filled with supplies, and also what looked like a unit of knights from the castle. It gave him a total of eight party members, which was probably not a good thing, but given how our last interaction went, I decided not to tell him that…for now, it would be best to deal with the problem before us, then discuss tactics after.

Oddly, the blonde girl was with him, and given her stats, she was part of his party. That was…I wasn't sure WHAT that was. This world has a weird idea about children, and if she was able to fight, and she seemed quite capable given her spread, then who was I to judge her for joining the hero, or him for taking her up on being part of his group? I did hope her parents knew about this…though given this world, perhaps the lack of parents was the reason she was helping? A tragic backstory?

I could have used (Insight) to find out, but given it was an invasion of privacy, I decided not to. I'd ask, again, once we were done with today's mission, and as the sun began to rise, golden light flowing across the land, the power of the Hourglass shone beneath our feet. That, as I noticed, included the wagon that Naofumi was beside, which made me wonder how the magic counted it as part of his party, but before that thought could fully form, we were taken away, towards our next battle.

The moment we arrived, I found my party alone, in the middle of the forest, and had them form ranks. We had heard that we wouldn't be dropped together every time, the Heroes of the past had complained about that in my help menu often enough. Still, to be brefet of the power of another Hero was not a good thing, and the fact that the moment we were down, the sky turned red, and the swirling storms of energy began to form, well, it meant we had to hit the ground running.

In an instant, I shot my first few boosts into the party, using (Dual Wield) and (Hydra-Line) I gave everyone buffs for both kinds of attack, and then quickly shifted into defenses, before reaching out with the sense of magic within me, and grasping at the threads of the three brothers, who, knowing what was coming, jumped in front of us, tossing their gear to Souka who stored it into seals on her armor, and then stood before us with hunched postures, ready to spring into action.

An instant later, (Precision) boosted, and their statuses linked, I shot an (Up Scale Arrow) into Strong, who grunted, as he and the other two surged forward, the storms above only now beginning to rain their fell magics upon us. This time, it was not undead and insects, but Goblins and Lizardmen, which made me wonder, briefly, if they were sapient, but I dismissed the idea, given the Goblins we'd dealt with on the road couldn't communicate, and the Lizardmen looked ready to fight.

The first wave of opponents didn't reach the ground, as the suddenly massive forms of the brothers took them head on. With (Proud Roar), Strong's voice thundered upwards from the thirty meter tall lion, slamming into most of the first fall, causing them to splatter against it like raindrops, their gore and remains fading into nothing, as they had barely an instant to become part of this world.

Shadow, meanwhile, did something with his 'Stripes weapons' that he'd never done before. As the black lines rose from this back, they divided up, becoming not just a dozen or so, but hundreds, and as he stood there, crouched forward, they surged into the sky, the broad sweep of them replaced with precision strikes that speared the oncoming horde, their bodies hanging limply for a moment, before vanishing into nothing.

Fast seemed to be standing still, honestly, until one noticed that his arms, up to the elbow, seemed to have vanished. Looking into the sky above, and using my own gear to zoom in on the enemy, I saw it. He was…poking the enemy to death. His fingers were broader than the chest of lizardmen, and in most cases simply bigger than a goblins entire form, and he was using his ability to create holes to literally smash them by the hundreds in the air above us with just his fingers.

We saw the rising of our EXP, but that was our only, admittedly still fine, reward for this, and the moment it was clear, I used my (Blink) in two jumps to get onto the shoulder of Fast, standing beside his head, and looking around for a moment, his height above the woods increasing my vantage point, allowing me to spot, in the distance, a larger hole than the rest in the heavens, one that was disgorging a huge shape.

At first, I thought it was a dragon or some other massive creature, but as it came forth, the form took more definition, and I realized it was a ship, one with tattered sails, and a crew of undead, as I zoomed in with my telescopic ring. A quick look using (Insight) told me this flying dutchmen was a 'Soul Eater's Arc', an event boss thing back in Dimensional Sign, making me wince, as I knew it was going to be trouble.

"There! March towards that, we'll be right behind!" I shouted to Fast, who nodded his head, as I jumped off his shoulder, falling towards the ground, and then catching myself with another (Blink), allowing me to land in the midst of the ladies like I had never left. All total, less than a minute had passed since the Wave began, and we were already on our way to clearing it off.

"There's a flying ship in the sky in that direction. They'll clear the way, but we've got to keep them covered from behind," I said, and the others nodded, as the three giants were already walking, with powerful strides, towards the vessel I had spotted. We followed them, and as the enemy, those not falling directly onto them, began to come from all angles, we did our duty as well.

Okay…the ladies did their duty, but I did provide boosts, and ability buffs as needed, tossing out (Boon)s which gave their attacks various flavors of elements, swapping quickly between fire, ice, and light, as the enemy changed from Goblin, to Lizardmen, to Direwolves with skeletal arms. This mixture was, in fact, actually pretty good. Average goblins, powerful lizardmen, and fast direwolves.

Even the ability to one shot most of them, as Lucia fired off her spells, Souka smashed with her hammer, and Ray slashed with her blades, on top of what the three titans could do, the numbers began to work against us. For those of us on the ground, we were able to dodge the fire of our foes, but the three above us were not quite so agile, and soon, they began to get whittled down, one hit at a time.

I was worried, for a moment, that they would be hurt badly, as their HP dropped further and further, but then something interesting was revealed. Apparently, boosts wore off if they dropped below twenty-percent of their Max HP. That had…never come up before, but the moment Strong, who used (King's Flare) to literally throw a river of fire to clear us a path towards the ship, hit that barrier, his body literally seemed to pop, and he shrank down to normal.

That was a problem, given he shrank towards the center of mass, meaning he was suddenly several meters in the air, and falling towards the ground, but I reacted with a speed I would not have expected, and soon had my hand on his back, using (Blink) to grab him out of the air, and then bringing the two of us back to earth with a bit more fuss than what I normally did, causing us to land in a heap of limbs.

Luckily, while it took us a bit to disentangle ourselves, the other two had seen what happened, and they adapted, with Shadow doing a sort of Spiderman/Doc Ock trick with his stripe tendrils, spearing a tree and spinning around it to kill his momentum as he came down. He even wound up landing with a kick against the head of one of the direwolves, and used a flame spell to set it alight, causing it to become a flaming projectile that slammed into some of its fellows, as he slid to a stop with us.

Fast simply leaned down, so that when he lost all his boosts, he was closer to it, rolling to completely kill his momentum, and then he leapt right back into the fighting. Even without his boosts, he was still plenty powerful, and his limbs vanished into holes as he punched, kicked, and otherwise tore at one of the closer lizardmen, taking a few hits to take it down, before finally coming up to us.

Ray healed them to full easily enough, and with their gear quickly redonned, we continued on our way. Fighting became harder, when the enemy could now come from all around us, but with boosts reapplied, and knowing the direction to go, we carved our way through most of the horde still, only really slowing down when a particularly dense group tried to bar our way, and Lucia tended to deal with those…explosively.

Climbing up a ridge, and soon coming into full view of the ship, flying about fifty meters off the ground unfortunately, leaving us not quite sure what to do, as the enemy continued to assault us. Luckily, we were not alone in this fight for long, as not only did Ren's group soon appear with a cry as they rushed a formation of lizardmen, but shortly after, Motoyasu opened up with an explosive shot from his lance, detonating over a small horde of goblins, vaporizing the little terrors.

"What the hell man?! When did this become a freaking kaiju movie?" demanded the Spear Hero as he joined us, and then looked around, only to stare at Lucia in her gear.

"And now Sentai? What? Do you have a megazord she can summon now?" he asked, and I looked back at her, and then actually smiled. I'd been thinking she looked like a Power Ranger, but interesting to hear they knew them too.

"It's one of the boosts I have…and before you ask, you have to be naked for it to work, so no I'm not using it on you," I say as Motoyasu's eyes light up, but he immediately grabs…a codpiece? Why was his armor equipped with one of those specifically? Regardless, we set up a perimeter, having the parties hold them off as we took in the sights around us.

"So, you guys know what that is, right?" asked Ren, and Motoyasu and I both nodded.

"Soul Eater's Arc. Gods, I didn't expect this place to hit us with a puzzle boss like that this early," responded the Spear.

"Yeah, so think this is the version with the skeleton captain, or the one where you have to find that stupid sword to open up the cabin?" opined Ren, and such that Motoyasu and myself stared at him.

"I don't know either of those. My version was this kraken thing on the ship's backside, it has regenerating tentacles, and you have to kill them before the Soul Eater pops out of its body," he said, and I could see a few tendrils along the side of the ship, saying it was up there…but then I remember seeing an undead crew as well.

"And mine was a gemstone in the crow's nest that goes into the eye of the figurehead. So we have to assume that this place isn't quite the same. The puzzle is likely different from any of those, but might be themed after them," I admitted, looking up at the ship.

"So…do we try everything at once, or do them one at a time? Also, getting up there, that's a problem too," said Motoyasu, which prompted Ren to start pointing at a part of the ridgeline the ship would pass by. It would be a difficult jump, but possible.

"That's only part of the problem. The Soul Eater in my game does this revival thing. The first phase drains the MP from as many people as it can, and then comes back powered up with it. Yours?" I asked, and that actually caught them off guard, before Motoyasu snapped his fingers

"Yeah, I remember that! It's been so long since I fought it I forgot. So…no casters then?" he said, motioning towards the parties, which were doing good at culling the numbers of monsters assaulting them, but were not going to be able to keep that up forever.

"No anybody, just us. We go up there. With Bard's ability to boost our stats, the Heroes can take this thing down, just like the Chimera, and while we have MP, it's not nearly as much as our parties combined. Besides, if we run out of MP, it's not a big factor in our combat abilities, but for them, it leaves them poking things with sticks. Pointy sticks, to be fair, but still," said Ren, and I nod.

"Sounds like a plan. Once up there, we start trying our ways. If they don't work, we do whatever else we can. Everyone, gather up!" I shouted, and the parties all obeyed. Even Myne interestingly enough, as she shot a goblin off the rise with a blast of wind, and the dancer lady blew a kiss towards it that turned into a fireball, vaporizing it.

"The Heroes are going to confront the boss. It…might take a while, but that means we're leaving you guys on the ground…um…who do we leave in charge?" Motoyasu had sounded very confident up until that last bit, but I knew the answer, and pointed.

"Ray is the highest level, and she's worked for the Guild for a long time. Most of our parties are used to her as the go to for instructions, and as a Paladin, she has all sorts of skills designed for a leadership role," I explained quickly, and I actually saw her blush a bit at that, but she nodded, and no one seemed to object. Myne looked like she was about to, but Motoyasu didn't seem to notice.

"Awesome. Ladies, keep the monster army back, and the Hero of the Spear will be right back with the head of another boss to show for his victory!" he shouted, and turned to start off towards the ridgeline, but I had another idea, and motioned for him and Ren to stand close to me.

"Everyone, this is for all the marbles! So stay together, stay safe, and above all else…kick their asses!" I commanded, and then fired off a pair of boost bubbles, giving everyone in the other parties a nice taste of attack and magic attack boosts, including Ren and Motoyasu. When that was done, I placed my hand on both their shoulders, and then used (Blink), about five times in rapid succession, the three of us shooting into the sky, and landing without much grace, on the deck of the ship.

"Holy shite! Since when can you fly?!" demanded the Spear Hero, as he rolled to a stop on the deck, and without missing a beat, jammed his weapon into the body of one of the skeletal crew, ripping it clean in two with a single swift attack.

"Well, you know what they say, the most important element of a battle is that of surprise," I responded cheekily, as I tossed a defensive boost his way, allowing him to literally tank the counter attack of the pirate captain, as its weapon just kind of stopped when it hit him, rather than digging into his armor.

"That's against the enemy, not your allies!" he complained, as he drove the captain back with a spin of his weapon, and then swept it around him, as we backed away from the prow of the ship.

"Focus on the fight at hand, complain about how we got into it later! Take down the Captain first. That doesn't work, we do the kraken, and then…whatever else," said Ren, as he leapt into the fray, his sword glinting in the light of the hole in the sky, giving him the look of a noble Hero, wielding a glowing weapon against the fell horde of enemies. Motoyasu, not to be outdone, followed suit, as I hung back, and we got stuck into the battle.